Star Light, Star Bright
Star Light, Star Bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish might,
Have my wish come true tonight.
The poem is a common childhood wishing poem taught to many English- speaking children. Well, my parents never taught me this poem. It was the television that taught me this one. Most North Americans will quickly recognize this poem.
Well, the reason I bring up this poem is because of the recent meteor shower. It is called the Leonid Meteor Shower. It happens once a year and it is often seen close to the star constellation called Leo. It is the ice and rock debris left behind in space by a comet in our solar system. Once a year, the Earth travels through this debris and the ice and rocks hit the atmosphere and burn up. When it flies through the atmosphere, it looks like a "shooting star."
According to the news, this year's meteor shower was supposed to be the best meteor shower for years to come. So, I decided to take some time and see this wonderful show of nature.
It was a Saturday night. I had already spent the day trying to work on my homework assignments, but I wasn't having much luck. My friend called me up in the evening and asked me if I wanted to go. I said yes. I wanted to do something other than homework. School has not been fun.
There was one problem, though. The meteor shower did not start until 1am. That was in the middle of the night. I tried to get some sleep before I went, but I just couldn't sleep. So I stayed up.
I left the house around midnight. There were two cars. My friend drove one and I drove the other. We had to pick up other friends. When we picked everyone up, we drove towards one of the nearby mountains. The mountain is called Cypress Mountain. We went to a mountain so we could see the stars better. The city lights make it hard to see the meteor shower. Cypress Mountain is just north of the city so we had to drive through downtown and over a bridge to get there.
Once we got there, our two cars became separated. I did not know where to stop, so I just kept driving up the mountain. When I called my friend on his mobile phone, he told me that he had already stopped somewhere. I didn't turn around, so I just found a spot and parked the car.
There must have been hundreds of cars on the mountain at that time. Everyone had come to see the shooting stars. We had to dress warmly because it is very chilly on the mountain at night. I even saw some people who were wearing great big winter jackets. Some were in sleeping bags and lying down on the ground to see the sky better. Some were lying on top of their cars. We didn't have that kind of equipment so we just stood outside the car and looked up into the sky.
As we looked into the sky, we would see all the regular stars. They were beautiful. The stars looked much clearer than when I am in the city. At first, there were very few shooting stars. Just one or two every few minutes. Then the shooting stars came more often around 2am. It was neat to see these streaks of light fly through the sky. Most were small and hard to see. Some were nice and bright. My friend saw one that left a purple trail in the sky. I missed that one. I must have missed a lot of them. I would look to my left, then I would miss a shooting star on the right. I would look to my right, then I would miss a shooting star on the left. It made my neck a little sore. But each time I did see a shooting star, I'd say, "Woah!"
By 2:30am, our feet were cold and our noses were feeling very cold too. We decided to leave and drive back down the mountain. I thought it would only take a few minutes to drive down the mountain. Boy, was I wrong. There was a traffic jam on the mountain. The cars were lined up bumper-to-bumper like a snake down the side of the mountain. If I had a camera, I would have taken a picture of it. It was too funny to me. It was the middle of the night and there was a traffic jam on the side of the mountain. You don't see that everyday.
After getting off the mountain and driving my friends home, I finally got home at 4am. I was really tired, but I had trouble sleeping. I must have been too excited about that night. But I needed to get to sleep. I had to perform the next morning at 11am. You know what? I should have made a wish on one of those shooting stars.
Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have a good sleep tonight.